Christine Armario, AP

But we never visited Cuba, had no contact with relatives there, no heirlooms besides a handful of black-and-white photographs.

My family left virtually everything behind when they fled Cuba in the early 1960s. They decided exile was preferable to communism and vowed never to return until Fidel Castro left power. They seldom spoke at length about the lives they once lived 90 miles from Miami, where my parents met and I was born...